Congress leaves town without approving Tennessee bills

Sen. Fred Thompson, left, talks about bringing the party together to support Lamar Alexander in his bid for Thompson's Senate seat during a news conference Aug. 5, 2002.(Photo: File / The Tennessean)Buy Photo

WASHINGTON –The proposal to name the federal courthouse in Nashville after Fred Thompson didn’t get approved. Nominees for the TVA board and a federal judgeship in Memphis didn’t get confirmed. And several bills inspired by significant issues or events in Tennessee didn’t go anywhere at all.

Congress left behind a lot of unfinished business when it adjourned a week ago, and several of the bills that died have significant Tennessee ties.

The naming of the $194 million federal courthouse in Nashville after Thompson, the former senator and actor who died last year, should have sailed through both the House and the Senate. Courthouse-naming bills usually do, and this one had nearly unanimous support from Tennessee’s congressional delegation.

The House, in fact, passed the bill on Nov. 29. But a prolonged fight in the Senate over health benefits for retired coal miners slowed most other business to a halt in the closing days of Congress. As a result, the Senate went home without ever taking a vote on the Nashville courthouse bill.

The offices of Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Brentwood, and Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Maryville, who led the push to get the courthouse named after Thompson, said last week they expect to refile the legislation next year. This time, the Senate is likely to go along.

Nominees to the Tennessee Valley Authority’s board of directors probably won’t get another chance.

President Barack Obama renominated three members – Joe Ritch of Huntsville, Ala., Peter Mahurin of Bowling Green, Ky., and Mike McWherter of Jackson, Tenn. – to the nine-member board back in July. The Senate, however, never got around to confirming them.

Their nominations expire at the end of the year. Obama could submit their names again in the new year, but there’s little chance they would be confirmed before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20. More than likely, it will be Trump who will fill the board seats.

The same holds true for a federal judicial nominee in West Tennessee.

Edward Stanton III, the U.S. attorney in the state’s Western District, was nominated by Obama for a U.S. District Court judgeship more than a year and a half ago but was never given a confirmation vote in the Senate.

The issue was not Stanton’s qualifications. Stanton, a Democrat who lives in Memphis, was even backed by both of the state’s Republican senators. But the GOP-controlled Senate took its time confirming Obama’s nominees and refused to give any of them a vote in Congress’ closing weeks.

Stanton’s nomination will be sent back to the White House at the end of the year. Trump could renominate him next year, but that’s unlikely because Republican presidents usually fill such posts with members of their own party.

Several bills with Tennessee connections also died after Congress failed to act on them.

Legislation inspired by the 2015 terrorist attack at two military installations in Chattanooga sought to counter the propaganda that groups like ISIS use in the recruitment efforts. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Ooltewah, passed the House twice but was never taken up by the Senate.

House and Senate bills to designate thousands of acres in East Tennessee as federally protected wilderness areas and add them to the Cherokee National Forest never got a vote in either chamber.

Neither did a DUI bill filed in response to a tragic accident that killed two teen-age girls who were students at Briarcrest Christian School in Memphis.

Rachel Lynch, 17, and Maddie Kruse, 16, died on May 31, 2015, when their car was struck by a drunken driver who had been charged with DUI six times before but, because not all of the charges were reported to a national crime database, had been allowed to plead guilty five times to first-offense DUI.

Reps. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, and Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, filed legislation after the crash to close that reporting loophole. Cohen’s office said he would refile the bill next year.

Michael Collins is the Washington correspondent for the USA Today Network-Tennessee. His weekly Tennessee in D.C. column highlights Volunteer State lawmakers, causes and connections. Contact him at 703-854-8927 or mcollins2@gannett.com.